Which to use
“Tournai” is a name and “tournais” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #15,775
- “Tournai” frequency rank
- #49,402
- “tournais” frequency rank
- 65177
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Tournai | tournais |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Commune de la province de Hainaut de la région wallonne de Belgique. | Relatif au Tourne, commune française située dans le département de la Gironde. |
Same sound, different letters: Tournai vs tournais
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. Tournai runs 7 letters (CVVCCVV) against tournais's 8 (CVVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - Tournai and tournais
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: Tournai and tournais carry the same recorded pronunciation, \tuʁ.nɛ\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is aname, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “Tournai” sits inside “tournais”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65177, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Tournai is recorded at frequency rank #15,775, classified as aname, pronounced \tuʁ.nɛ\. tournais is at rank #49,402, tagged as anadj, pronounced \tuʁ.nɛ\.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 65177, this pair ranks #73,496 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of Tournai vs tournais
Shared letters: ainortu. Private to "Tournai": -. Private to "tournais": s.
"Tournai" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVV · "tournais" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "Tournai" for "tournais" ever safe?
Frequency check: "Tournai" vs "tournais" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "Tournai" / "tournais". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "Tournai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tournais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #73,496 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Tournai" and "tournais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "touchais vs tournais". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #73,496 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.